I think Pacific Rim is going to have a lackluster opening but then have somewhat strong following weeks due to word of mouth.

What I think is killing this movie is a severe lack of advertising. If I wasn't a member of this site, I'd have no idea what it is.

Coming from someone who works in the comic book industry I can firmly tell you that Avengers is possibly the best comic book film ever. It was well received by comic fans and general audiences. You don't have to love it, but the numbers don't lie about it the same way they do about Transformers. It's a genuinely good movie.

It's genuinely a good movie if you're able to ignore Whedon knows nothing about the language of film, that the film had poor pacing, a lack of clear direction, flat characters and lack of any convincing arcs or that the film had no real villain and instead climaxed as soon as the Avengers sorted out their hierarchy but then included a tacked on, bloated and artificial action sequence (which included the closest thing to a focused villain being taken down in a gag) that if done by Michael Bay would currently be the target on the proverbial dartboard of the internet everywhere.

that the Soul Reason why a Really good Live Action Gundam film cant Be made

I liked Transformers (the first live action one) and The Avengers. Am I a walking contradiction?

In any event I agree with conundrum, I think Pacific Rim will not do great opening numbers but will stick around the box office for a while, and gain very strong word of mouth... not unlike Hellboy, which had a total domestic gross of $59m (about $72m adjusted for inflation). Of course, Hellboy cost a lot less than Pacific Rim, but that's another discussion.

That is a big reason why Pacific Rim should have been marketed well, they put a lot of money behind this without that safety net of nostalgia or it being an existing property so if this flops, it may well be quite some time until we see something like this again.

I actually forgot about the lack of marketing because I spend so long on this forum. I wonder what the decision over the weak marketing campaign was.

If people think it's a Transformers movie, then it should do extremely well. All of those movies made a fortune. The fourth one next year will as well.

But Pacific Rim isn't on track to open like a Transformers film, so I don't think that's it. They've botched the advertising for PR. Emphasized the cgi and the action. Which is enough for some people but if you actually look at the way the Transformers films were advertised, they emphasized the human story as well, at least with the first film. They put Shia Lebeouf and Megan Fox out front. And though people really hate those two actors now, at the time it made them both stars. It gave people who don't automatically see every movie with giant robots a reason to go see the movie. Because that latter audience is much bigger.

I know who all the actors in Pacific Rim are because I pay attention to that kind of thing. I've picked up on their storylines in the movie, but only from closely examining all the marketing materials. It's not terribly obvious what's going on with the humans in the movie. And that's a problem. And since none of them are famous they need to put them out there even more.

Even Idris Elba, whose most visible role in the US was a recurring role on the american The Office - the Wire was a critical darling but low rated. Charlie Hunnam's the star of a hit cable show, but the standards for cable shows are lower(Sons of Anarchy is usually below five million viewers, which sounds like a lot but doesn't translate to much box office, even if every single one went to see PR).

Here's a quoted link from TFW. He also points out this little bit:

And somebody else followed up with this:

Basically all this "predicted failure" is hogwash. The movie is getting positive reviews, people who are aware of it are spreading the noise, and as said while it may have a weaker opening, word of mouth will deffinitely get more views in the following weeks.

Let us hope than that word of mouth picks up the slack, as the marketing certainly isn't. We need this film to succeed!